Flashback: Serendipity

Where we were married.

There used to be this great pub downtown. It was where I met many wonderful people when I first moved to this city. One bitterly cold New England winter evening, I was bellied up the bar savoring an oatmeal stout when the door swung open. The blustery wind blew in two disheveled young men.
I immediately asked my brother, "Who's that?"
"Oh, that's Dude. Don't even bother. He's married with a kid," he huffed. He then went on to sing the praises of Dude, being so hardworking, a jack-of-all-trades. They had been friendly for many years.
Dude and his friend walked up to say hi. Dude and I ended up talking for the rest of the night. He was kind and honest, and we had a tremendous amount in common. At the end of the night, I was thrilled to have met a new friend.
I didn't see Dude again (nor did I really think of him).
In early summer of the next year, I was out with my roommate. We may or may not have polished off a bottle of cheap champagne in our apartment before heading downtown. On our way, we stopped at the 7-Eleven so Roomie could get a pack of smokes. And in walks Dude.
In his soft voice he greeted us. "Hey, what are you guys up to?"
We informed him off our plans, and he told us where he and his friend would be. And so we parted ways.
Three hours later, Roomie and I found ourselves marching back up the hill to the bar where Dude was. We met up with him and his friend and played a few games of pool.
Again, we parted ways.
I would later come to find out that the night we saw him at 7-Eleven, Dude had seen us walking in and followed. He didn't actually need anything at the store, he just wanted to talk to us. Or, to me rather. Then, after our night of billiards, he and his friend started going to that particular bar all the time hoping to run in to us.
And since our apartment was literally three blocks from the bar, our next meeting was inevitable.
After seeing us together a few times, our friends came up with a grand plan to ditch us so we were alone together. After the bar closed one night, we all went back to my apartment, loaded up backpacks with booze and wandered down to the beach (again, literally three blocks from us). Nearly twelve of us crowded onto a lifeguard chair and continued the party. Then, one by one, everyone got "cold" or "tired" and started walking home.
Eventually, it was just me, Dude and an enormous bottle of wine. We sat in that chair all night. He told me that although he did have a wife and a kid, they had been separated for nearly two years now and would be divorcing in the fall. He told me about his life and his trials. I told him a little about me. At 4am, his phone rang - it was his wife - but she hung up immediately after he answered (why I didn't run at that point, I'll never know...). As the sun appeared over the Atlantic, we shared our first kiss. With droopy eyes and an empty bottle, we walked hand-in-hand back to my apartment where, exhausted, we slept (and he snored...again, why I didn't run then...).
In the early stages of our relationship, I was still very unsure about things. Dude really liked me, calling so much that I started to think he was creepy. My roommates, so convinced we were meant to be together, started erasing the messages he left on the machine so I would only hear one. Then they would leave sticky notes all over the apartment that said, "Call Dude!"
Eventually, I started calling him back.
Almost six years to the day we met, we were married on a rocky cliff overlooking the same ocean in front of which we shared our first kiss.